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p Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik has informed us that the concept of philistinism is "immeasurably broader" than the concept of the bourgeoisie. In this connection I would earnestly beg him to explain my following doubts:

p Firstly, on what grounds does he assert that "the bourgeoisie is first and foremost the third estate"? For the third estate embraced both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, in so far as these social categories existed at that time.

p But when the third estate existed, the bourgeoisie was still far from complete supremacy in West European society. It did not attain this supremacy until the estate system (ancien regime) had been destroyed, i.e., until all logical grounds for calling the bourgeoisie an "estate group" had been removed.

p I think I can guess why our historian forgot history in this case, but I will not say why. I prefer to wait for Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s answer.

p Secondly, even if we do away with the definition of the bourgeoisie as "first and foremost" an estate group, we still retain its definition as a class group (why not simply a class?). What do we have now? The following.

Although the philistines, as a group, are "immeasurably broader" than the bourgeoisie, it is obvious that they include the bourgeoisie also. We are bound to assume this, at least for the present time and for such a country as, for example, present-day France where the old regime has been more thoroughly destroyed than anywhere else. Thus, in present-day France there exists the bourgeois class, and this bourgeois class is a component part Of the “non-class” (although, due to the destruction of the estates, not “non-estate”) group of philistines. But if this is so—and,

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492 as the reader can see, it cannot be otherwise—do we have the right to call the philistine group a non-class group? Obviously not! The social group, one component part of which is the bourgeois class, must itself have a class nature at least to a certain extent. But precisely to what extent? This depends on the role which the class in question plays in this group. If the role played by the bourgeoisie belonging to this group is an influential role, this group inevitably acquires a bourgeois nature. If, however, this role is not very influential, the group which includes the bourgeoisie is affected by the class spirit of the bourgeoisie only to an insignificant extent.

p But in this case also we shall still not have the right to call the philistine group a non-class group. If one of its component parts is the bourgeois class, its other parts can only be other classes or strata. This is as clear as day. And if it is clear, one wonders: which classes or strata? Mr. Ivariov-Razumnik keeps the most persistent and profound silence on this count. But silence is no argument.

p In a society divided into classes, any social group is necessarily of a class nature, although depending on the circumstances this nature is not always clearly expressed. But anyone who wishes to write a history of social thought must be able to understand it even when it is expressed faintly and unclearly. Otherwise he will be forced simply to mil Worten kramen  [492•*  to use Mephistopheles’ famous expression.^^140^^

p I have taken the example of present-day France as a country where the broom of the Great Revolution has swept all the rubbish of the estate system out of the social edifice. And I would again ask Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik to answer my question: do the groups which, together with the bourgeoisie, go to make up the collective group of philistines in this country have any kind of class nature? If so, what exactly is it; and if not, why not. And what does this mean?

p I shall await his reply impatiently, but in the meantime I shall continue to adhere to the strong conviction that in present-day France the stamp of the bourgeoisie lies on all the other social classes and groups, with the exception of the proletariat, and this only in so far as the latter consciously—or albeit unconsciously—revolts against bourgeois hegemony.

p Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik is not fond of embarking on sociological discussions; he prefers to remain in the sphere of ethics.  This is his business, of course. But let us see how rich in content are the conclusions he reaches in this sphere.

p “Defining as broadly as possible the essence of ethical philistinism,” he says, "we shall say that philistinism is narrowness, 493 shallowness and impersonality, narrowness of form, shallowness of content and impersonality of spirit; in other words, having no definite content, philistinism is characterised by its very definite attitude to this or that content: it makes the most profound content shallow, the broadest content narrow, the sharply individual and vivid content impersonal and dull....

p “Philistinism is conventionality, the creed of philistinism and its cherished aim is ’to be like everyone else’; philistines as a group are therefore that conglomerated mediocrity (to use Mill’s expression quoted by Herzen) which at all times and in all places makes up the crowd that dominates in life...” (I, 15-16).

p Thus, "philistinism is conventionality”. Therefore antiphilistinism must be anti-conventionality, and the history of Russian .social thought turns out to be the struggle of anti-conventionality against conventionality. This is indeed a new and profound view (void of all “conventionality”) of the historical destiny of "poor Russian thought"!  [493•* 

p “The concept of philistinism is immeasurably broader" than the concept of the bourgeoisie. We already know that this is clear only to people who regard history from the viewpoint of the struggle of anti-conventionality against conventionality, whereas less profound thinkers are confronted here by what are for them insuperable difficulties. But let us assume that these difficulties have been overcome; let us assume that Mr. Ivanov-Razuinnik has already explained to us—something that] he has not, in fact, done and perhaps never will do—the relationship of the French bourgeoisie, for example, to the other social groups which together with it make up in France, as in all the bourgeois countries, "the immeasurably broader group of philistines”. After assuming that the difficulties which were tormenting us have been overcome, we naturally enough experience a considerable sense of relief. But we are soon beset by fresh worries.

p Speaking of the struggle against "literary philistinism,"  [493•**  our author mentions, inter alia, the so-called bourgeois drama (I, 47). But what is "bourgeois drama”, what was it in its day? A form of literary expression of the struggle of the bourgeoisie against the old order, or, to use Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik’s expression, a form of the bourgeoisie’s struggle against literary conventionality. It follows, therefore, that there was a time when the bourgeoisie was not a component part of the philistine group, but stood outside it and struggled against it. The bourgeoisie against philistinism—this was the situation in France as recently as in the middle of the eigh- 494 teenth century. It is this situation that worries me. And anyone must admit that it is a highly paradoxical situation.  [494•*  When Herzen was shooting the sharp arrows of his sarcasm at philistinism, he evidently did not even suspect that such an historical paradox was possible. But now Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik and I have discovered it. Why have we been so fortunate? It is very simple! Herzen regarded "ethical philistinism" as the fruit of certain social relations, as a certain phase in the history of the Western bourgeoisie. He saw "ethical philistinism" as a spiritual quality of the bourgeoisie  [494•**  during the period of its decline. This is why he was able to speak sympathetically about other phases of its development, about the periods when "the Raphaels and Buonarrotis, Voltaires and Rousseaus, Goethes and Schillers, Dantons and Mirabeaus" appeared on the historical scene. And for the same very understandable reason he did not consider philistinism to be characteristic of either mediaeval knights or Russian peasants. But Mr. IvanovRazumnik and I have gone “on” from Herzen. We have abandoned the viewpoint of sociology and turned philistinism, this characteristic of the bourgeois class, into an eternal “ethical” category. And having performed this operation, we are no longer surprised when we observe the struggle of bourgeois drama with philistinism, Major Kovalyov with his own nose, the bourgeoisie with its own "spiritual essence”. Oh, we have “outstripped” Herzen by far!

p Philistinism is conventionality; anti-philistinism is anticonventionality. We have two categories which can indeed be called eternal and, therefore, also “non-estate” and “non-class”. But these eternal, "non-estate and non-class" categories are the same as the categories of old and new. The defenders of the old can rightly be called the representatives of conventionality and the innovators its enemies. The whole of history is the struggle of the new against the old; if nothing but the old had existed all the time, there would have been no history. This is indisputable. But this indisputable truth is even leaner than the leanest of the cows in Pharaoh’s dream. And far more “conventional”. It does not bring us a step nearer to understanding the course of social development. This development is understood not by the person who discovers in it thfe struggle of the new against the old, but by the one who is able to see where the old (which was also once the new) has come from; why it does not satisfy the innovators at the time in question; what determines the course of the struggle of the innovators against the conservatives and on what the outcome of this struggle depends. 495 That is the point! And in order to cope with this task one must move to the ground of sociology.  Any given philosophy of history is valuable theoretically only in so far as it has moved to this ground, in so far as it has succeeded in establishing the sociological equivalent of this or that “ethical” phenomenon. By the time that Herzen wrote his brilliant passages on West European philistinism, quite a lot had been done in this direction.

And it was not for nothing that he went through the indispensable school of classical German philosophy: he realised that philistinism does not come out of thin air and does not exist eternally but is created by philistine conditions of social life. This is why the brilliant passages which he devoted to philistinism retain the significance of a serious, although by no means always full and correct, analysis of West European spiritual life. But Mr. IvanovRazumnik has gone “on” from Herzen ... into the realm of empty abstractions, and therefore his History of Russian Social Thought is now—may he forgive me for my; harsh judgment—of no theoretical significance whatsoever.